Valda practically screams when I agree to wear the outfit, she has laid out in front of me. Her silver eyes fill with excitement as I give her the sense of a connection, I imagine she has always wanted, with her Luna. The woman who, unbeknownst to her, is in the middle of choosing between her feelings and her fear to commit. I'm letting the Lycan do anything she wants, her words running together as she tries to tell me of a surprise waiting for me when we arrive at the dinner. She assures me I will be the most beautiful Luna to ever walk the Earth.

All her comforting words work, and that makes me feel worse about my unmade mind.

"You always look like you are on the verge of running." She slips easily into her mostly one-sided conversation, catching my attention and making me flinch from the truth. Her gentle fingers move through my hair, sectioning it out as she prepares to curl the mass of white adorning my head.

"It's what I've been doing for most of my life and is not an easy habit to break." Valda releases a small sound before fully starting on her creation. I had no doubt Alarik would love whatever this woman was about to do, and for the first time, I craved his acceptance of my being.

I wanted his heart to race when he saw me from across the room. I wanted him to be as nervous as I had become since getting to his territory. Even with the man being only a few doors away I still felt an ache in my chest with being away from him, and I did not doubt that this is what he'd been feeling since the day he'd met me. The times he'd clenched his fists from touching me, the way he held me when I'd allowed him to.

Alarik had spent the days here believing it may be his last to see me, to touch me, to be within distance of the body that so forcefully called to his. My blood was still sitting within him, healing my mate as it had been meant to do and somehow it has only brought us closer together.

A new kind of connection. One that is wrapped around me and unable to be cut away.

"I will be Asger's...date, to dinner tonight," Valda says the words with strangely shaky confidence, and I spin towards her with a wild grin. She's less than impressed by my sudden interest, and I had no doubt she'd only brought this up to brighten my uncertain mood. "Don't look at me like that, vampire."

I give her another look before turning around for her to finish up her work. Soft curls frame my face, and she's begun working in a few braids to make it more my style. I already know Alarik is going to like it, as I very rarely have put my hair down in front of him.

"I wasn't aware this was going to be so formal. I thought we were doing a barbecue or something, but certainly not an event that required you to be his date." Valda scowls at me, roughly pulling a strand of my hair and forcing a squealed laugh from me.

"We have to show the pack that you and Alarik are okay, that the punishment was a needed and forgiving mishap. Tonight, you will sit beside him, you will eat from his hand, and you will give our pack a view of what they've been waiting on for a long time." The Lycan losings her amused expression for a moment, and I know it's not from a mess up with my hair. "It's especially important that tonight goes smoothly, even if you haven't decided to stay. Even if you leave us tomorrow, we need this."

We make eye contact in the mirror, the sadness in her eyes creating pain in my chest. Had she given in and understood my right to leave? Did she give up on taking away my choice? I shrug.

"How long has he been after you?" The question gives my ferocious friend a reason to blush, her eyes not meeting mine again as she tries to come up with a lie or find the courage to tell me the truth.

Whichever she gave me, I would not pry too deeply. Valda was quiet with her actions, and no one I've spoken to around the pack had ever mentioned the relationship that I'd noticed in just days of knowing the two of them. She trusted me enough to tell me about what I can only presume is the next step in their relationship: exposure.

She doesn't answer for a long time, and by the time she has finished chewing her lip my hair is finished and she's turned me around to begin on makeup. Something I'd been without for so long I almost gag at the feeling of it being placed on my skin.

"My mate, and why I'm not with him, is a long story. The way things ended between us the last time I'd seen him was messy and since I'm the one that rejected him it's a hard situation to talk about. I know it must seem hypocritical of me, to have forced your relationship with Alarik while I'd denied my mate. But just like you, I have my reasons." The woman moves gracefully, her eyes homed in on my face as she dabs something onto my cheeks. "Asger, well his mate died before you would have even been born. It was a nasty thing, and at the time I'd been great with him and her. She was a sweet girl, had a nasty temper when it came to him though.

I know for certain that wherever she is watching us from, she's not happy about it. As you've noticed the mating bond does that to you, the sense of possessiveness is insane—which is why Alarik acts like a whack job most of the time."

I laugh, and she playfully slaps my hand when my head moves with the actions. I settle down after a moment, closing my eyes and allowing her free reign to do as she pleased with the makeup in her hands. Hopefully, the woman would not go overboard, no one would recognize if she did.

"It took a long time for our feelings to grow, or mine to anyways. After Celine died everything was... different, in the pack, and we all thought he would go with her. I stayed with him, making sure he would eat and usually forced him to bathe because something about grief makes people lose their sense of smell." I can imagine her rolling those silver eyes with the statement. "So, after he started being more himself again, everything happened rather quickly. Asger is touchy, as you've seen, and Alarik finds the situation hilarious but especially in the beginning it was a mess."

Valda releases a shaky, but the amused breath that tells me she's far from done with this story. I listen intently, wanting to know everything about their lives before I'd arrived. It was hard to imagine the big softie of a Lycan to be anything other than cheerful, and charming.

"One moment we're laughing at some human female who found him attractive and propositioned him—and then we were in bed. He became so clingy, never wanting me around other males and having to be in contact with me all the time. I hated it, and then the eyes of the pack were always on us which made it worse. We'd kept it very hidden for a long time, and a few times I'd tried to break it off because our...love languages just don't match up.

Eventually, I realized I'd rather be smothered by him constantly than not wake up with him beside me. It's unbelievably corny, but after I told him about my thoughts everything got really good. Now I think I'm ready to show the pack it's official, even if the bond has not been made yet."

Valda pulls away with a small sound, telling me she is happy with the work she's done, and I feel a small bit of wonder move through me. Do I look more...appealing when dolled up? Will Alarik want me this way often?

I am unsure of why that gives me a sense of anxiety.

After just really accepting any type of feelings for the male it hurt to imagine that he'd prefer me in something I find so repulsive, sure I would appear more put together and pleasing to most eyes. But this was not me. I was as I'd been for the last few centuries. Satisfactory.

A whirlwind of smart words and an attitude, a skirt on occasion but never a dress, and for the love of all things I'd never been one to put that horrid clay on my lips. Now I'm sitting here feeling sticky and different and very, very worried.

"Was it hard walking away from someone you were meant to be with?" I ask, feeling her watching me as I look over her most recent masterpiece.

I look beautiful, more put together than I ever have and I'm unsure of how to feel as I take in my pronounced features. It's not over the top, that I am happy about, but I feel unsettled at the fact that I look significantly better this way. My lips are poutier, my cheekbones high and well defined along with my eyes popping more than they ever have. Valda sure does know how to make a woman feel like a queen.

"Every day it gets a little easier, but the feeling of something missing has never gone away. Even though it's been almost a full century since I've seen him last. Our morals didn't align, especially with the kind of people he was involved with—something never felt right with him but with Asger, it is the complete opposite.

We fit together perfectly, even in our friendship we were perfectly matched and when things started to get more intimate, I'd never felt happier with someone. Even in the arms of my true mate I had never felt so whole. But he had had so many issues, so many things to separate who he was from reality and there was nothing I could do to fix that. He was so angry when I'd rejected him, but when behavior doesn't change there isn't much you can do."

I watch her begin fixing her hair, a faraway look in her eyes that I recognize a little too well. Instead of allowing her to do the normal action of helping everyone else and being left to her own devices, I deiced to do what any friend would. My feet carry me gracefully towards the woman who does so much for others and leads her to take the seat I had been in.

Valda doesn't fight me, not one word leaves her mouth but the arch in her brow and the intensity of her confused stare tells me everything.

"I never have been good with hair," I state, giving her a wink before beginning on the front of what will soon be my masterpiece, and I decide that after all of her confessions it was time I told a story of my own.

I feel a sad smile tugging on my lips as I force myself to begin. Who knew that such a simple memory could bring so much grief into one being?

"My mom used to do my hair, always having a different flower to put through the weaves or some crazy idea she had before bed. As a child I thought it was fun, always having the prettiest hair and never having to do it myself. After having so many boys my parents had been rather relieved to get a girl." A picture of them all moves through my mind, and I bite my lip to keep my feelings out of the discussion. "When I started getting older, more into boys and less interested in spending one hour of my day having my mother attached to my head it had devastated her. So, we made a deal because otherwise she never would've let me leave the house.

Since it had become too embarrassing for everyone to know she did my hair every day, I had to do hers. Now, that woman was particular. Like every hair had to be in the perfect place, and eventually, I became as good as she was but what I regret most in my life was my inability to hold onto moments. I remember how frustrated I'd get being with her instead of someone else in our clan and I am almost ashamed by it." Valda's eyes have not left my face as I tell her of my past, a story I'd never spoken about.

"Is this a style she enjoyed wearing?" I meet those silver eyes while fighting back the tears that threaten to fill my own.

"This is the same one I'd allowed her to do the day those beasts murdered my clan; I had this exact pattern in my hair when I was taken. But it was always my mother's favorite and I've missed seeing it more than I can explain." I push one thick braid under another and pin it in place with a quivering smile. "It's as beautiful as I remember it to be."

------------------

The sun has almost vanished by the time we make our way out of the packhouse and begin the journey to a large hall full of howling Lycans and laughter. All of which brings an overly large grin to my caked-up face. Valda laces her arm through mine, her skin brushing against mine sends a strange sense of comfort into me and I lean a little more into the woman. My dress was dragging the ground in a way that usually would have brought me discomfort, but right now I understood that dirt was dirt.

Alarik wouldn't mind if I had a little mud on this beautiful red dress, that fit way too tight and showed a few to many inches of my skin. Valda had seemed pleased when she finally helped me squeeze my ass into the contraption that so many women wear more than once every few centuries. I'd call this a cage, but one of those had at least a little breathing room.

This is a very anxiety-filled day, and as I make my way past drunken Lycans and towards the male who'd left me very unsatisfied I feel myself wanting to impress him. I want his eyes to be glued to me. Those silver orbs entranced by the sight of my being, as mine have always been by him.

"I bet your heart would be racing a mile a minute right now if it could, wouldn't it Luna?" Valda's amused tone pushes a grunt of displeasure through my trembling lips.

Lycans greet us the entire way, turning their neck in a show of submission that my body has grown to enjoy. I can feel the eyes of a familiar male moving across my body, but I keep my gaze on those giving me their attention. Even while full of wine and whiskey these creatures still feel the need to make me feel welcome.

The hair on my arms stands and there is a pit in my stomach that tells me I need my glass of whiskey if I'll be surviving this night. I'm barely keeping my eyes away from my mates, knowing that once I look at him any confidence, I once had of walking into this event will evaporate.

Oh, how I crave to see every inch of the perfect male before me. Just as I'd been doing since the first moment of meeting Alar1ik, I am just holding off the inevitable. Should I control myself for a few more minutes and pretend that the burning of his stare all over my being isn't driving me mad? Asger approaches us with a sinister smile on his rugged lips, and those silver eyes are stuck on the female beside me whose heartbeat has raised significantly.

"The best-looking females around have finally arrived." Although he speaks to both of us, I know his compliment is aimed mainly towards the melting beauty beside me. Her arm slips out from mine, but she gives it a quick squeeze before moving towards the male sucking in her scent.

I used to find these moments strange and uncomfortable, now I recognize this as the most intimate of moments between two beasts who have created a bond. Or planned to.

"I never thought I'd see the day when you aren't covered in mud and looking less like an animal and more like a man." He throws me a toothy grin and takes my hand to give it a soft kiss, the comfortable nature between all of us was a nice change compared to the tension that had been there not long ago.

"Our little vampire, wearing a dress and a smile—how strange." Valda lightly slaps Asger's chest and I roll my eyes, prepared to fire a comeback his way but interrupted by a rumbling voice that has my knees going weak.

"My Luna."